Dissident republicans will not win: McGuinness

The upsurge in dissident republican violence will not derail political progress in the North, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness vowed today.

Rather than dividing the North’s politicians, the actions of the extremists are only serving to strengthen the power-sharing administration and unite democrats in their determination to make it work, he told the assembly.

Mr McGuinness told the groups to "get off the back" of the community as their latest victim – father-of-one Kieran Doherty – was buried in his hometown of Derry.

“These people who are anti-peace and are anti-justice are acting against the democratically expressed wishes of all the people of Ireland,” said Mr McGuinness.

“They have nothing to offer our society apart from their futile acts. We will continue on the road we have set out upon to deliver a better future and attacks such as these unite us and serve only to strengthen our resolve.”

The body of 31-year-old Mr Doherty was found near the border last Wednesday after he was bound and shot by the Real IRA. He had served time in prison in the south as a Real IRA member and his family claimed he had rebuffed MI5 attempts to recruit him.

The killing came 48 hours after a dissident car bomb badly damaged the courthouse in Newry, Co Down.

Over the weekend police fired plastic baton rounds after coming under attack during riots in an estate in Craigavon, Co Armagh, known as a hotbed of dissident activity.

At Mr Doherty’s funeral at Long Tower in Derry this morning, Father Roland Colhoun condemned the killers.

“To those who killed Kieran, I think we should say that they have brought terrible distress to his family,” he said. “In the decisions you made last Wednesday, you changed the lives of his family.”

During ministerial question time, Mr McGuinness said the dissidents were no army, just a gang of people with no lives who represented nobody.

“This is a gang of people who are opposed to peace, who are opposed to justice and who are opposed to political progress and these are a gang of people who believe that it’s a legitimate political objective to destroy all of the good work that many of us in this house have been engaged in with the assistance of others over the course of the last 15 years,” he said.

“So we’ve had enough of victims and our message is very, very clear to all of those groups who are out there – and at this point of time as we speak they are mostly on the so-called republican side – and that is to give us a break, to go away and get a life for themselves, get off people’s back and recognise that you’re going absolutely nowhere.”

He added: “So we’re saying to them, give us a break, we want no more victims, we want you to go away, stop your activities, give us the opportunity to move forward and if you’ve got the intelligence and ability you can, yes, continue to oppose politically what we are doing, but the use of violence has had its day in the north and on the island of Ireland.

“We’re moving forward, we’re not going to be diverted and each act they carry out, instead of us becoming weaker, we will get stronger, stronger than ever before. No matter what they do we will continue to move forward and move forward together.”

Earlier, Assembly business got under way with representatives from all the main parties condemning the murder of Mr Doherty.